My House in

TASHKENT, July 10, 1996

By Adam Smith Albion 1. Water

We are in the third week of chitta, the hottest part of the year: forty days of punishment stretching from June 26 to the night of August 4. With the temperature hovering around 104F (40C) simmers and pulses in the heat. To make matters worse, it is si- multaneously smothered under an all-pervading blanket of dust blown in off the steppe. A deadly combination, heat and dust: the streets are full of people gasping and choking on the pavements, like fish newly hauled out of the water and gorping to death on a plank. Still, walking in the sun is preferable to being boiled like lobsters in the over- crowded busses. Tashkent is the only place know where there is scalding hot water in abundance, but regular shortages of cold. Air conditioning is extremely rare, either in homes or in public buildings. have installed the only model available, actually a type of Soviet-manufactured air-blower called the BK-1500, beside my desk in my apartment. In the other rooms, however, it remains oppressively hot. Once, sitting at the telephone in my own kitchen and glistering with perspiration, when was concentrating intently on the tiny voice at the end of the line Tashkent connections are awful, even for in-city calls the receiver began to slide in my hand from the sweat until inadvertently squeezed it, like a bar of soap, right out of my grasp.

Chilla, interestingly, is also the term used to describe the forty-day period after a woman has given birth. Uzbek tradition calls for strict confinement of mother and child during chilla. Only close relatives may set eyes on the newborn, while the chitlali mother is forbidden to participate in housework or exert herself in any way. She is waited upon hand and foot and fed choice foods to restore her strength a rare quadragesimal holi- day in the otherwise toilsome life of an Uzbek wife. It would be interesting to know which meaning of the word came first. In either case, chilla calls for lethargy, shelter and recuperation.

Torpid passivity is the only way to survive summer in Tashkent. If the refinements of city life had caused me to forget that Uzbekistan is essentially a desert republic, situated in a hostile environment enjoying at most eight inches of rain per year, remember it now. The weather is continental, exhibiting extremes of temperature inversion: freezing in winter, blistering in summer. Life here, as in much of Central Asia, wholly depends on sources of water. All major settlements, Tashkent included, have historically been con- centrated around oases those rare islands of fertility scattered in river basins or tec- tonic troughs, wherever there is loess sufficiently irrigated to make it wet and loamy and suitable for agriculture.

Otherwise, apart from some mountain spurs, Uzbekistan is the kind of place that is te- dious to cross by bus, presenting the bored traveler little of interest beyond the occa- sional sighting of a jackal or a jerboa. It is a land, about the size of California, of semi-arid steppes and deserts that offer some sparse grazing for pastoralists (mainly sedges and ephemeral blue grasses) and not much else unless you happen to fancy yourself an ex- plorer of the old school, eager to prove your mettle against the elements. At least two in- trepid souls, Dutch and Turkish, have recently crossed the Kizilkum/Karakum ["Red- sand"/"Black-sand"] deserts by camel and donkey in order to recapture the Silk Road "experience." Needless to say, they were trailed by television crews in air-conditioned jeeps carrying iceboxes. Lord Curzon, who really had the sort of authentic Turkestani ad- venture in 1888 that these men were seeking to emulate a century later, would have found them faintly ridiculous. He very sensibly rode the Transcaspian Railway, bringing his bathtub with him, and described the Karakum desert as "the sorriest waste that ever met the human eye" in his memoir of the trip, Russia in Under these circumstances, one might have expected Central Asia and the Anglo-Russian Question. Tashkent to empty out in July. Not so long ago, appar- ently, Tashkent during chilla was as abandoned as Pads in Modern life in Tashkent reenacts the perennial Central summer. A sort of claustrophobia would drive Central Asian story, the search for water, by massing around the Asia's pent-up inhabitants in a Gadarene rush into the sea city's many "microclimate" fountains, which are designed more precisely, to the beaches and sanatoria of Yalta, to cast curtains of spray and coolness of evaporation over Sochi, Dagomysh and Varna. So, clearly, am not the only grateful pedestrians. By unwritten law, children under ten one fantasizing about the Black Sea. (Another destination, are permitted to strip to their underwear and bathe in marginally less popular, was the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul them. As for the rest of us, the sun beats down endlessly in Kyrgyzstan. The water there is cleaner, but chillier.) an average of 2,980 hours per year, in fact, a saturation These annual vacations, considered a Soviet citizen's of sunshine comparable to southern California's. Al- rightful due, were financially accessible to practically eve- though there are a few ice-cream parlors, the traditional rybody up to and through most of perestroika, and were Uzbek response is to sit under shelter and consume gal- typically available through one's profsoyuz (approxi- lons of steaming green tea. In theory, hot fluids bring on mately, "trade union"), which subsidized about 90 per- perspiration that cools you down. In practice, became so cent of the cost of the trip. Since the collapse of the USSR, overheated drinking tea last week that collapsed for a however, they are beyond the reach of all but the very day with sunstroke. richest. The profsoyuzy themselves are so impoverished that they are only offering package holidays (putyovki) The sunlight is blinding but, like everything in Tash- and poor ones at that- to a vast minority of their mem- kent, not quite clean; the quality of light has a unique tone bers. The only putyovki available at present seem to be 10- to it, a tinge of sepia-gray from the suspension of dust par- day stays at worker's rest homes within Uzbekistan (Ku- ticles in the air. They are deposited on everything and eve- mishkam, Khumsan, etc.), costing about $8, where every- ryone in a fine patina of dirt. For instance, the capital's one lucky enough to have secured places has complained trademark mulberry trees are in bloom. Half-naked chil- upon their return that the buildings were ill-maintained dren run through the parks rummaging for berries, while and the complimentary three meals a day were practically serious-faced babushkas, invariably wearing print dresses inedible. bought off the racks at the State Department Store (Tsum), harvest them more methodically in metal pails. But even Faced with such unappealing prospects, there are those the mulberries are grimy with dust, and many trees along who prefer to toil on without a summer break for the sake the major thoroughfares planes, chestnuts, weeping of an extra month's salary. Impaired by physical sluggish- willows look as if ash-trays have been emptied over ness and mental hebetude in offices equipped without them, their leaves and bark powdered with a sediment of even a fan, such people's work is probably worse than use- filth in which you can trace your initials with a finger. less, so have felt no guilt in wasting hours of their time drinking tea. Then there are others who find themselves think the sunstroke pushed me over the edge, and be- forced to take a holiday without wages when they are gan to have dreams about crystal waterfalls and shady turned out onto the streets by state enterprises relieved pools. also began pining for my balcony in Trabzon, not to have to pay them. Although Uzbek law guarantees bathed in spray thrown up from the Black Sea. In compari- the right to paid leave, have been surprised to encounter son to Turkey, Tashkent started to feel stifling, a bottled- many people unwillingly at leisure in this way, usually for up heat trap situated in the middle of the Eurasian land- 24-26 days- from civil servants and state bank officials to mass. Uzbekistan is not merely land-locked it is the sole theater administrators and even a group of men met on country on the planet all of whose neighbors are land- the metro who turned out to be disgruntled (i.e. unpaid) locked as well. workers at Tashkent's Chkalov Aircraft Factory, once fa- mous throughout the USSR and the corridors of the Penta- Imprisoned in the empty heart of a vast continent! gon for its gigantic cargo planes (especially the Ruslan, the How one can long sometimes for a breath of sea breeze, IL-76, and the IL-114). asked the men how they intended or any gentle movement of air whatsoever to cool the to spend their month of involuntary vacation. Deprived of brow! But when wind does come, it brings its own brand the Black Sea, they would be searching out the life-giving of punishment. The only sea breezes available in Uzbeki- element closer to home: perhaps riding the busses to stan, unfortunately, are draughts of airborne salts like so- "TashMor" ("Tash-Sea'), a large lake on the outskirts of dium sulfate and man-made poisons blowing off the eco- the city; or farther afield to Chimgan; or to the Chatkal logically dead Aral Sea, asphyxiating the Karakalpak Mountains in order to bathe in the Charvak dam- population in the northwest of the country. In Tashkent, reservoir's two billion cubic meters of fresh, bracing, thanklly, gusts are less deadly but much more violent. mountain-cold WATER. As soon as the crowns of the trees begin to sway, appre- hensive pedestrians step up their pace. Those who have 2. A talk in a garden been sand-blasted once too often break into a sort of brisk trot, as one imagines Pharaoh doing when he caught traveled to Samarkand to buy a house. sight of the plague of locusts darkening the horizon. For one must be quick about getting to shelter. There is a sud- A shady place of my own where could escape from the den pulse of air and- pof!- great handfuls of sand and heat. A town that used to be the cynosure of the world. grit are launched in your face as if somewhere, far off in the desert, a thermonuclear weapon has been exploded. had tossed off the idea one afternoon to my friend No-

2 'ASA-17 dira, an elegant young woman in her forties. It was a swel- you mean. My father sold it, probably." She ran her gaze tering day in June. We were sitting together beside a luxu- over the garden once again not the garden of her child- riant vegetable plot on a sori, the raised wooden platform hood now, which she saw so clearly in her mind's eye, but that is a mandatory piece of furniture in any proper Uzbek the physical patch around us while poured tea. She garden. Sheltering us from the sun was a roof of vine- seemed to take umbrage at the sight of so much orderly trellises that in a month or so would be dripping with ripe, and peaceful cultivation. Her expression indicated, "This bullet-shaped white grapes called Ladies' Fingers. It was tranquillity could have been mine had fate not inter- quiet, and for a whole two hours we were almost cool. The vened and spoiled everything." bustle of Tashkent's Old Town seemed far away, screened from us by high mud walls, it would have complemented Her own life, was aware, was beset with distractions the scene perfectly if we had been sipping from goblets of and troubles. Nodira often claimed she was an unlucky sherbert, but, alas, only porcelain bowls of green tea. person. She never blamed others for her own misfortunes. She did nurture a sense of being uniquely ill-fated, The house belonged to one or another branch of No- though, which had an unfortunate tendency at times to dira's improbably extended family. A grandfather had shade into envy. It was her single bad trait, in my opinion, built it with his own hands, and they were proud of it. clearly in operation now, as she surveyed the relative com- Nine people in all were living in five rooms, the walls fort in which her relatives were living: a secure domicile painted azure blue, the doors and window-frames a strik- and a vegetable garden providing a cushion against spiral- ing titanium white, set around the central courtyard. No- ing food costs and the decline in real salaries. "Why them dira and dutifully toured the eggplant and tomato and not me?" she seemed to be thinking. plants, the cherry and pomegranate trees. We picked Shah- tut giant, king-size mulberries- and confessed to one Furthermore, it is my impression that the house, the another that we were jealous. Like me, she lives in a face- sense of place, the desire to be settled, operates strongly in less apartment block made of concrete the least desira- the Uzbek psyche. find the Uzbeks, on that score, to be ble housing in modern Tashkent, since concrete heats up the British of Central Asia. The cultures of the Kazakh and like a furnace in high summer. Brick buildings are cooler, Kyrgyz, more recently sedentarized than the Uzbeks, and consequently more expensive. Mud houses, however, more naturally prioritize the freedom that comes of hav- are the coolest and most comfortable of all, not to mention ing no fixed abode. So felt understood the tenor of No- the easiest to repair, although of course Soviet planners dira's thoughts when she muttered, "Yes, there's nothing scorned them as feudal hold-overs and the ethnic Russian to compare with living in a house." population disdains to live in them. "Let's buy one," suggested cheerfully. "Where shall it Nodira wistfully recalled that she had been brought up be?" in a house virtually identical to this one. "We grew all our own vegetables, and raised chickens. We even had our This sudden proposal of mine may strike one as some- own COW." what unexpected, absent the context. It may seem less rad- ical in light of the fact that Nodira and are already old "Let's go visit it," said with genuine enthusiasm. "I'd hands at purchasing Tashkent real estate. We have bought like to see your childhood home." a food-processing plant and a tea factory, both of which we stripped bare and re-outfitted with astonishing new "It's gone. Destroyed in the 1966 earthquake, when technology. Moreover, we established Tashkent's first was fourteen. Where our mahalla [Uzbek, tight-knit neigh- American pizzeria, called "Samantha's," on the roof of the borhood] used to be, they erected apartment blocks and History Museum, and are co-owners of a fashionable made a road." Her family, temporarily homeless, had chain of hard-currency massage parlors with a fancy clien- been taken in by relatives until the state assigned them tele to match. A number of metro stations are also named new housing in southwest Tashkent a stuffy, cramped after our acquaintances. flat in Chilanzar district. "We lost most of our possessions. Had to start practically from nothing. My father's painting Nodira, however, was not biting that afternoon. "You survived, though the one hanging in my living room." buy one," she said. "I'm too tired today." Her father had been an amateur artist, and the picture she referred to was a small study in oils. had always as- Anyway, she continued in a more serious vein and sumed it depicted a remote cottage somewhere in the obviously with her own housing difficulties in mind- country, overhung with trees whose branches laced the real estate prices in Tashkent have skyrocketed during verandah with shade. "That was our house," she ex- the last three years. A two-room apartment in the center plained, "not far from where Tsum is now. Oi-oi-oi! We that used to cost $3,000 is worth nowadays over $10,000. lived well then! Fresh milk and eggs, everything ecologi- A four-room house downtown by the river will set you cally clean... And ever since then have had to pay for veg- back $35,000. Then we must look farther afield, per- etables- can you imagine! have to haggle for them in sisted; the purlieus of Tashkent, or the provinces. the markets. My parents never had to buy vegetables until Chances of a bargain are better there, naturally, she ad- we were moved into an apartment..." mitted. If you were willing to forgo the capital to live in the second city of Uzbekistan, you could purchase a "What happened to the cow?" asked. house for under $6,000.

"I don't know. It survived the earthquake, if that's what "With a garden?" asked, thunderstruck at the figure.

Institute of Current World Affairs 3 "With a garden," replied Nodira, testily. "A fine, spa- site. Their job appeared to be scraping gilded stucco off cious, fruitful garden. But who would want to live in Sa- door-jambs. More and more people arrived until my eyes markand? she concluded. were fairly popping at the size of the workforce spread across the . Within an hour the square was full of Who would not want to live in SAMARKAND? was the the sound of hammers clinking. From every direction question clanging in my head. there came a resounding din. Above, men on scaffolding chipped away at the age-old tile revetments and replaced 3. A loss of heart them with modern imitations. Below, they pulled up pav- ing-stones and tinkered with the plumbing and under- Have you never allowed yourself the pleasure of being ground electric cables. Commotion on all sides: swarms of lured on by a grand and beguiling thought, an idea too ab- laborers engaged in hammering, drilling, stripping, scrub- surd to be taken seriously, too improbable to be worth bing, plastering. It proved the same story on every histori- pursuing, yet so inherently attractive that you found your- cal monument in Samarkand. self inching toward it? All the way to Samarkand shook my head with bemusement over this impractical, insou- For example, when entered the Gur Emir, Tamerlane's ciant figure who was myself. Foreigners are not even per- mausoleum, had hoped to enjoy a quiet meditation over mitted to buy property in Uzbekistan. But would find a the conqueror's tomb and to experience again the musty way. smell of ages past. Instead, upon crossing the threshold was dazzled by lights bright enough to illuminate a film For the third time stood in the Registan, dubbed "the set. The place reeked of paint and whitewash not smells noblest public square in the world" by the aforementioned to inspire any confidence that restoration is proceeding Lord Curzon in 1889. found myself, once again, drawing slowly and carefully, with due regard for historical accu- a breath at the glorious color and the vision of the archi- racy. And in fact men were clambering over a huge pile of tects. had seen it before, but it was still fresh and exciting. scaffolding that reached to the ceiling, daubing at ancient It was early morning. There was no one to enjoy the great designs with ruthless haste. Outside, the front courtyard arched portals, the leaning minarets ribbed in Kufic script, had been torn up from its roots and was being relaid with or the glazed, bulbous domes bursting with turquoise new stone. was told that 250 men were working on the no one but I. Bounded on three sides by Islamic seminaries Gur Emir alone! They, like their colleagues elsewhere in rioting with ornamentation, loaded with majolica and ala- the city, were engaged in a headlong sprint to make Sa- baster mosaics, decked out with marble and gold, the Re- markand spick-and-span in time for the Amir Timur jubi- gistan surely deserved the grandiloquent praise and au- lee festivities in October. reate descriptions that tourists have always lavished on it. Restoration is surgery on the past. It is a discipline that, Then remembered had not come as a tourist but as a like archeology, simply cannot be conducted in a slap- potential resident, and set myself the task of seeing my dash fashion, if it is to have any chance of remaining true surroundings from this novel perspective. to the monuments it purports to be bringing to life. It is no secret in Samarkand that artistic authenticity is being sac- At 8:45 a.m. the first workers arrived. Taking up their rificed to expediency. even met artisans who lamented paint-pots, they ranged themselves along the south side of their own complicity in committing various degrees of the Ulug Beg Madrasa. Soon they were busy touching up a outrage on buildings they personally respected. repeating polychrome design on the wall. It was not long before a second party was at work on the building oppo- In the Tillya-Kari Mosque off the Registan, one man

The author at the Registan, Samarkand

4 ASA-17 Tomb (they say) oJ: Tamerlane pointed out how the blue and red paint on the walls, and More disturbing is the story of the latest restoration pro- the gold on the honeycomb pendentives in the mihrab, ject for the Tillya-Kari Mosque (completed 1647). The in- were already peeling away despite two rounds of restora- ternal arcades were repaired as recently as 1993, but the tion, in 1979 and earlier this year. "Rising damp and salt mosque as a whole needs to be shored up against collapse. attack," he said, shaking his head. "No one thinks ahead. Its foundations, lying over older buildings and a dried-up You do a job, although you know it's only a temporary fix, river bed, are variable and unstable. Recent soil settlement you get paid, and you leave it to the next generation to brought on by rainstorms have exacerbated the situation. clean up. That's the mentality here. Like the prefabricated The government was advised by the Restoration Institute apartment blocks Krushchev slapped up in the 1960's in Tashkent that the problems required a considered, deli- [Krushchovy, a play on the word trushchoby, "thickets," cate approach. Imagine the shock when it was announced slang for "cheap apartment blocks."] The engineers and that the contract for strengthening the foundations had architects knew that they would start disintegrating 25 been awarded to Uzmetroprojekt, the state metro- years later, but they said to themselves, 'It won't be our building company! The news, which smelled strongly of problem.' That's how the restoration is proceeding here the pork-barrel, was one more piece of evidence that cul- too. Everything will be sparkling for when President Kari- tural decisions in Uzbekistan are not made by people con- mov and the foreign dignitaries come, but after they've cerned with culture. left and forgotten about Samarkand, the place will prob- ably all fall to pieces again." Uzmetroprojekt's proposal was to apply the same tech- nology that had proven successful for blasting out subway Short-term thinking can lead to decisions that are tunnels in Tashkent to stabilizing a mid-seventeenth cen- breathtakingly insensitive to broader concerns. Last year tury structure. They had begun to push steel pipes rein- the so-called Indian caravansaray, a historic structure forced with concrete horizontally under the Tillya-Kari's standing on Silver Street between the Chorsu pavilion and foundations when a horrified UNESCO [United Nations Timur's Citadel, was demolished in order to sell off its Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization] constituent parts as building materials! This decision, stepped in. gather from UNESCO's on-site architectural made by the mayor, was in fact countermanded by the consultant, Mr. Boccardi, that his organization was Ministry of Culture in Tashkent, but the Samarkand city obliged to lobby all the way up to Karimov's office before council overrode the order and destroyed it anyway. (One the Uzmetroprojekt tender could be canceled, despite re- hears of other instances where central government's writ ports already in Uzbek hands that the metro company's does not carry much weight outside the capital.) gentle ministrations would have resulted in the complete

1. Consider the way large swathes of Tashkent's Old Town have been torn down ("redeveloped') to build apartment blocks, which are often populated by the same people whose houses stood on those sites. Thus, in some instances, whole mahallas that used to extend horizontally now live vertically. Historical structures earmarked for preservation by the Board of Monuments, and appearing on the Ministry of Culture's own register of listed buildings, are being demolished! The official explanations given by the hokimiyat [Town Hall] concern either the need for improved sanitation, or the requirement to "modernize" Tash- kent and bring it into conformity with "European standards." A more likely consideration is that the head of the construction company concerned is said to be a relative of the mayor. Moreover, have been reliably informed that many of the officials who gave the nod to the destruction of the Old Town are not from Tashkent they came into their positions from President Karimov's power bases in Samarkand and and so harbor no sentimental feelings about the capital's heritage. Institute of Current World Affairs 5 collapse of the mosque (destroying it to save it?). The new the "cooperative sector," allowing for small-scale private plan, drawn up by a joint Uzbek-foreign team, tackles the business (earlier castigated as "speculation") in 1989. Other- problem from a wholly different direction. It calls for ver- wise, it is a conservative, provincial town where traditional tical reinforcements using piles with hydraulic jacks in- dress is common on the streets, with none of Tashent's ex- serted between them to control leaning and dampen any periments in miniskirts and d6colletage. structural reverberations. Cheap Western products are abundant on the stalls, but Glimpses "behind the scenes" are almost always un- it is important to realize that is traditional too. Fully 150 pleasant, whatever the context, but a resident in any place years ago British adventurers in the region were com- has more of a responsibility to know what is going on than plaining that St. Petersburg's merchants were filling the a tourist. After a while began to envy the casual visitor. Turkestani bazaars with shoddy Russian goods. Modern too wanted to let the wool be pulled over my eyes-- to ad- romantics eager to experience "uncorrupted" Central Asia mire the buildings and enjoy the show without hearing bemoan the imported items in today's markets. Perhaps tales of desecration and human ineptitude. Most travelers they even fancy themselves latter-day versions of those in- only see the surface. The Registan's majestic facades are trepid nineteenth-century travelers to Central Asia, forget- worthy symbols in this regard, since it will be observed ting that often a dominant concern of said travelers was to that their obverse sides are as blank as pasteboards of displace the shoddy Russian goods and fill the Turkestani stage-scenery. Determined exploration through the rooms bazaars with shoddy Anglo-Indian goods. of the madrasas not generally open to the public reveal that many of them are as bare as the walls of a lazaretto. Every age imagines that the "good old days" have just passed, when a given people or ethnic group were cultu- Meanwhile strolled the town and investigated the mar- rally pure and economically innocent, and the moderate kets and residential districts, forever titillating myself interest that the West is beginning to take in Central Asia with the question in which mahalla would best like to guidebooks, popular history books, organized tourism live. fancied the Tajik quarters. soon discovered to my conforms to this pattern. Visitors want to see the shep- delight that the majority of the inhabitants of Samarkand, herd in his astrakhan hat, not the young Uzbek woman a town of around 400,000 people, spoke Tajik (an Indo- wearing Nikes under her harem pants. However, with the European language similar to Persian) more readily than rare exceptions of truly isolated tribes (the highlanders of Uzbek. had pleasant visions of myself mastering this ob- Papua New Guinea?), few societies are stagnant, and this scure tongue as an entree to Persian. Samarkand has long remark is especially true for Central Asia, which com- been subject to Persian influences. It came to prominence manded the world's key overland trade routes for the ma- in the 9th century AD under the Samanid dynasty named jority of the last two millennia, long-distance commerce after Samankhoda, a Persian noble. In the mid-16th cen- conducted by sea and air being relatively recent phenom- tury Samarkand was incorporated into the Khanate of ena. Thus, an antiquarian may admire a daguerreotype of Bukhara, where Persian was considered the language of a fierce-looking Turcoman, wrapped in a sheepskin robe elegance, and to this day many of Uzbekistan's Tajik citi- with a rifle over his shoulder, and lament how cheaply zens (4.8 percent of 22.2 million) and Tajik-speakers live commercialized the modern world has become. But on also in Bukhara. More recently, Samarkand has been closer inspection he may discover that those are cast-off swelled by tens of thousands of displaced people fleeing Tsarist cavalry boots the Turcoman is showing off so from nearby Tajikistan, when that country's communist proudly, while his new weapon is a 7.62mm Mosin rifle president was effectively overthrown by an "Islamic-led bought from a Russian depot. alliance" in September 1992. A second wave of refugees was created only three months later when the alliance was The point is that not such a wide gulf divides him, in his itself overthrown with the none-too-secret help of the Uz- cavalry boots, from his descendants promenading bek military acting in concert with the Russian army, pro- through Samarkand sporting Nikes. The town has not yet fessing to fear "fundamentalism." "sold itself" to the West, any more than that Turcoman had turned his back on his culture by bartering for some Despite the concentration of Tajiks in Samarkand, foreign products. There are plenty of sheep-skin robes and heard quite a few disgruntled voices raised about lan- atlas silk gowns yet to be seen on Tashkentskaya. Their guage rights the inability to speak Tajik in front of a owners are no less exotic for wearing sneakers under them magistrate, for example. am not sure how much justice more exotic, perhaps. there is to these complaints. Anyone who wished to attend Tajik-language school seems to have done so without let And yet... There is a great emptiness at the heart of the or hindrance, although it is true that failed to spot any city, which the tourist at first does not perceive. My Tajik-language books on sale in shops. Another grumble thoughts kept turning to the troubling enigma of the Regi- heard had to do with "lack of respect toward Shiite stan. As an open-air museum, it is magnificent. But it is no mosques," but unfortunately my informant could not be longer "the noblest public square in the world" as it was in drawn to say more. 1889, for it is no longer public. Despite the appearance of frenetic activity created by squads of workman, it is a si- Donkey-drawn omnibuses carrying ten passengers at a lent, lonely, desolate place. Admission is by ticket. Once time ply up and down Tashkentskaya, a lively street of this space and the adjoining streets had been a jammed small shops, kiosks and mors vendors mmors is soda water market area buzzing with craftsmen and merchants: a flavored with a sweet syrup tasting of licorice. The pace of sprawling Central Asian bazaar, even after its annexation life has picked up in Samarkand since perestroika launched by the Russian Empire in 1868. It continued as a noisy,

6 ASA-17 led by the Communists, made great progress:... From the wheel on which potters shaped their ware, to large ma- chinery works manufacturing hydraulic turbines...; From primitive weavers' shops where coarse fabrics were made on ancient looms, to the largest silk and textile mills in the Soviet Union...; From the maktab [elementary school] where the sons of bais, the native rich, learned by rote Ara- bic words they did not understand, to the Academy of Sci- ences of Uzbekistan; From strolling singers and musicians to an opera house....

For good or ill, the hydraulic turbines and textile mills won out over potters' wheels and weavers' shops in Uzbe- kistan. Samarkand was collectivized and industrialized. A city once known for its ceramics, faience, ganche, stucco and gold work- not to mention an artisan population in the 16th-century consisting of Persian miniaturists, Indian jewelers and Damascan glass-blowers is now home to tea-curing, fruit-canning and silk-weaving factories. As elsewhere in the country, traditional arts and crafts are al- most dead, officially discouraged for so long that the req- uisite skills are almost forgotten. Some folk art was specifi- cally generated for museums devoted to depicting the cultures of pre-Soviet indigenous nations as rather child- ish and vaguely decadent. But Uzbek wood and alabaster carving, lace-like fretwork or ornate plasterwork are hardly living arts any more- although they enjoyed a brief revival after the earthquake in 1966, when the stric- tures on excessive adornment, frowned on in the 1950's, were somewhat relaxed in light of the need to rebuild and redecorate Tashkent.

Here is the restoration work that the Uzbek government Interior courtyard of a Madrasa should be undertaking. The Uzbeks will renovate their (Islamic school) at the Registan heritage far better if they ignore the monuments for the nonce, and devote themselves to reviving those human smelly, colorful hub of public life until the communists' skills, energies and enthusiasms that originally made scorn of petit-bourgeois traders and "primitive" folk crafts those grand buildings possible. am not demanding a re- sealed its fate. Certain economic practices were "back- turn to the Registan only of those folk trades that would ward" and consequently ideologically unsound. The So- make it picturesque. Although that might please the ro- viets rigidly distinguished between the economic life of a mantics and the antiquarians, it would be patronizing to city, and those parts of it that were suitable for tourists. today's citizens of Samarkand as well as naive. Let them Moscow's cultural policy determined that certain monu- sell Nikes; but let there be potters' wheels spinning and ments were worth preserving as works of art, but did not anvils ringing too, if there is still an interest among Uz- hesitate to tear them out of the socio-economic fabric that beks and Tajiks in reviving these guild-crafts that were re- established their context and meaning. In the case of the cently,, artificially destroyed. believe there is so do the Registan, this meant that Lenin personally took a gener- UNESCO representatives here but at the moment it re- ous interest in ensuring the buildings were restored, but quires government encouragement and nurturing. helped found a policy that well-nigh hounded out of exis- tence many of the "feudal" handicrafts that had contrib- Historical buildings and museums are not culture; they uted to the Registan's construction and decoration in the are the backdrops to culture. No amount of new paint- first place. work and meretricious ornamentation will breathe life into the Registan, as long as it remains sterilized and seg- A Soviet propaganda book on the Uzbek SSR captures regated from the essential business of the city. If the town the communist hostility to folk skills and the traditional squares of Prague or Brussels (and the Registan is as im- Uzbek economy, boasting how much that was attractive pressive as either) were emptied out and encircled with and valuable in Uzbek culture has been stamped out. The fences, so that no sound resounded from their cobble- writer is almost hilariously oblivious to the revulsion his stones but the occasional tread of silent, awestruck tour- gauche rodomontade is likely to generate in the Western ists, the living spirit of those cities would have been dealt a reader, the audience for which it is intended: near-fatal blow. Samarkand is alive but crippled. Abolish the open-air museum, reestablish the public square, and "During the five-year plan periods the Uzbek people, an important step towards the town's rejuvenation will

2. Victor Vitkovich, A Tour of Soviet Uzbekistan (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1954), p.14. Institute of Current World Affairs 7 have been taken. Its heart will be beating again when the failure to make a thorough search for a possible heir be- clinking of workers' hammers is replaced by the din and fore matters had come to this pass. The official, climbing clamor of a thousand people greeting one another, hag- down a little, confessed that the situation was a little irreg- gling, arguing, exchanging news. Not until then, sadly ular. He stressed, however, that the neighbors had posi- concluded, did feel could take up residence and partici- tively identified Natasha as the old lady's daughter, and pate heart and soul in the civic life of Samarkand. that his superior, from whom the order had come, had also been persuaded that Natasha's claims were genuine. 4. Nodira carries through Nodira was convinced at the time (and remains convinced to this day) that such a persuasion, both on the part of the Meanwhile, a place to live was also occupying Nodira's superior and the neighbors, had suggested itself in ex- thoughts. In fact, her housing difficulties, which men- change for envelopes liberally stuffed with cash. She as- tioned in passing earlier, had been weighing on her heav- certained, meanwhile, that Natasha and her family al- ily for a long time. While was in Samarkand, she was en- ready had not one but two apartments of their own. tering the final stages of her struggle for her apartment. Things were not looking good for her. Nodira toyed with the idea of lodging a complaint with her district prosecutor's office but was reliably advised Her story is as follows. In 1977 she applied to the state that any such effort would be fruitless. Her sixteen-year for a three-room apartment. Her name was added to the old daughter, newly returned from a one-year exchange Tashkent hokimiyat's housing list in the normal way, at the program at an American high school, and full of enthu- end of a queue that she well knew was many years long. siasm for our alien ways, blithely recommended that her Nodira stoically settled down for an extended wait. She mother approach the press. Nodira did discuss the possi- married, produced two children, divorced, and continued bility of taking her story to the papers, but journalists to wait, living first with her husband's family, then with laughed at her naivety in imagining that the state- her brother, and finally for many years with her widowed controlled media would listen to her. They also mocked mother. She waited for seventeen years. her presumption in believing that her experiences were in any way unique. Nodira retreated, wounded. She won- In 1994, soon after her forty-second birthday, a note dered vaguely whether the hokimiyat had somehow vio- from the Town Hall informed her that there were no three- lated her "human rights," a popular new buzz-word in room apartments available, as she had requested in 1977. Tashkent, but she had no recourse to any appropriate or- However, the state in its magnanimity was now prepared ganizations in order to ask and find out. Finally, grimly to offer her a single-room apartment within walking dis- concluding that her situation was hopeless, she barred the tance of her mother's home. It was presented as a take-it- apartment door and waited to see what would happen. or-leave-it proposal: if the offer did not suit her, the hous- ing office pledged to keep her in mind in the future, but For once, she did not have long to wait. Natasha's first since the record would state that she had once already visit was not auspicious. She demanded to see evidence snubbed their generosity, there could be no promises that that Nodira was packing and preparing to move out. She a second opportunity would arise within her lifetime. Un- would be denied that satisfaction, Nodira hotly replied, der these conditions, she accepted. She also bought the until the hokimiyat gave her some assurance that a new apartment from the state for $1,200, a sum that repre- apartment would be forthcoming. Natasha erupted in col- sented much of her savings, since she believed purchase orful fulminations promising, in jist, to drive her rival out gave her the right to dispose of it as she chose. of the apartment in short order. She would camp in the liv- ing room the apartment's only room, in fact until this She and her children had been installed in the new aim had been achieved. Nodira was preparing to expel apartment for six months when an interesting new com- Natasha by brute force, when suddenly of her own accord plication arose. She was summoned to the Chilanzar hoki- Natasha turned on her heel and was gone. Nodira miyat. There an official blandly informed her that a clai- slammed the door after her and, with the virago's threats mant to the apartment had surfaced. A woman named still ringing through the room, burst into tears. Natasha was alleging that she was the long-lost daughter of the old lady whose death had liberated the apartment in Natasha continued to badger her, principally by tele- the first place. As the heiress, she had priority over No- phone, for the following nine months. Nodira's relief dira. Thus the original award of the apartment to Nodira that the police made no moves to eject her was matched had been declared null and void. Nodira remonstrated only by her mortification when they evinced no interest that she had purchased it and had a deed to prove it. The either in protecting her against future trespass, or in in- long-suffering official had the honor to inform Nodira tervening to stop Natasha's campaign of telephone ha- that, according to Uzbek law, the state had the right to re- rassment, which they chose to regard as "a personal af- voke the sale since, whether one bought a house or an fair." One friendly officer did suggest, in his private apartment, the land beneath it remained the state's in per- capacity, that if she believed Natasha had resorted to petuity. Consequently, the state was within its rights to re- bribery, Nodira's best solution would be to make the claim that land, and whatever may happen to be above it, housing office a counter-offer. whenever the greater good required. The word "compen- sation" was not mentioned. Nodira's vituperative protests Outraged and humiliated, Nodira took the slightly un- fell on deaf ears. usual step of approaching her district's Oksokolla; or "White Beards." Once the "wise old men" of any Uzbek Nodira got off some wounding barbs about the office's mahalla, who in the past used their authority and influence

8 ASA-17 to adjudicate informal disputes, the Oksokollar today act as and the shells of new homes. Timber lay across heaps of neighborhood committees typically offering advice and stones and sacks of concrete. Many empty spaces were help from their offices 4 p.m. 8 p.m. MWF. They wrote a laid out with mud-bricks drying in the sun. We passed petition to the housing office, and more than one small fragments of walls and doorways, where men bathed in delegation discussed her troubles with the hokimiyat. Al- sweat labored with hods and trowels. We trod heavily though they ultimately failed to turn the tide in Nodira's through muddy sumps that one day would be lanes and favor, she credits their intercession for delaying the date of roads. Finally, threading our way past the outermost her eviction. Developments climaxed when she returned houses, we reached a wide open meadow. Somewhere in home from work one evening and discovered a note, the midst of that overgrown expanse was Nodira's land. dryly informing the addressee that, if the apartment was not evacuated by the morning of Saturday, June 15, the She chose the largest plot, Plot 151 (20m x 30m), won- undersigned would take the law into her own hands and dering in her heart what in the world she would do with break down the door. The police, once again, refused to be it. Although the hokimiyat was visibly pleased to have involved. The Oksokoltar pledged to send an observer. washed its hands of her, she could hardly regard this de- velopment as a satisfactory resolution to her housing dif- The defenders took up their positions at 7 a.m. on Satur- ficulties, unless she was willing to live with her children day morning. They consisted of Nodira, her two children, in a tent. Actually erecting a house with her own hands her mother, her brother, and myself in the capacity of a was out of the question, and she could not afford to hire "foreign journalist." The morning dragged on in an agony laborers. In better times, she might have relied on the of anticipation. The clock had struck one o'clock when we hashar, the Uzbek version of mutual cooperation, heard voices on the stairwell. We stormed out onto the whereby the whole extended family assembled to lend a second-floor landing to encounter Natasha climbing the hand to a major construction project undertaken by one of stairs accompanied by a quadroon of beefy boys, who their members, not unlike a barn-raising. In the dismal en- turned out to be her sons and their friends. To my aston- vironment inaugurated by the end of the USSR, however, ishment, saw that one of them really was carrying an ax. she appreciated that her relatives barely had the energy A violent shouting match ensued. Nodira's brother led the and resources to meet their own needs, much less make a counterattack, with an extraordinary flood of abuse in significant contribution to helping her. In order to build, Russian and Uzbek, while Nodira, on the edge of hysteria, she estimated that she would require, at minimum, 30,000 called them all uncivilized animals. Chaos broke out when bricks costing seven Uzbek sum[UzS] (U.S.$0.13) apiece.3 the neighbors joined in on Natasha's side. The foreign Adding in the cost of wood, stone, paint and cement (130 journalist's presence was of no avail whatsoever. Seri- UzS for a 50-kg sack), not to mention plumbing and wir- ously alarmed that the situation was getting out of hand, ing, she calculated that constructing a small two-room dispatched the sixteen-year-old daughter to telephone the house with kitchen and facilities would set her back police again. In the midst of this stand-off, one of the Okso- U.S.$8,000. Her salary as chief accountant in a small gov- kollar arrived bringing a hokimiyat representative in tow. A ernment concern is 1,750 UzS (U.S.$33.65) a month. meeting in the official's office between himself, Nodira and Natasha was arranged for the following week. Al- She had communicated her decision to accept the land though the level of bitterness had reached a new high, the within two days, as she had promised. However, al- tension was temporarily diffused. Natasha's forces dis- though she had signed a document at the hokimiyat con- persed, claiming a victory out of this stunning exercise in firming her decision, she was still very far from actually intimidation. As we collapsed into chairs, the daughter re- possessing the land. Only someone who has never been ported that she had been unable to reach the police: the blooded by bureaucracy and red tape in the former USSR emergency line had been busy. could be so naive as to believe that.

The next week, at the tripartite summit in the hokimiyat, (1) Nodira's first stop was ZhEK (Zhilishchno- a proposal at last was forwarded to break the impasse. In Ekspluatatsionnii Komityet), the "Housing-Operation Com- exchange for peacefully renouncing the apartment, the mittee" in Chilanzar. This is where she paid her quarterly state was willing to grant Nodira a piece of land. She was telephone and utility bills. More pertinently, ZhEK presented with a choice between one of three contiguous housed records of her residence history, and was able to plots in northeast Tashkent. As in the case of the apart- issue her with a certificate (spravka) confirming that she ment, the offer was final. The housing office would con- was legally registered (propisana) in Chilanzar. Attaining sider itself free of all obligations toward her forthwith if the spravka cost 285 UzS. she rejected the proposition. She had two days to inform them of her decision. (2) She presented this certificate at UKS (Upravlyeniye Kapital'nogo Stroitel'stvo), the "Major Construction Work accompanied her the next afternoon on the bus to So- Administration." UKS processed papers for her that en- bir Rahimov district to inspect her choices. Behind the bus dorsed her intention to change her registration to a new depot at the end of the line, we found ourselves at the district of Tashkent. This endorsement was necessary, edge of huge fields filling up with half-built houses. We since otherwise she would be asking for registration at an were seeing a mahalla a-borning. We descended into an ir- address that did not exist yet, since her residence was not regular landscape formed by piles of building materials in esse but still in posse. For helpful confirmation of this

3. Mud bricks would have been cheaper, but she would have been starting construction too late in the year to use them: there would not have been sufficient time to raise a roof over them before the rains begin in October. Institute of Current World Affairs 9 metaphysical truth, and assistance in breaking out of a po- ience of the kind of house that has evolved, and the nature tentially vicious circle, Nodira was obliged to pay 315 of Uzbek society, which does not readily regard the physi- UzS. cal home as a vehicle for conspicuous consumption on the Western model, are GUKS's prices. (3) Armed with UKS papers, she was sent to TGIITI (Tashkentskii Gosudarstvennii Izyskatel'skii Issledovatel'skii From the first, Nodira had ruled out the possibility of Tekhnicheskii Institut), the "Tashkent State Technical Pros- living on her land. She simply regarded it as an asset, pecting Research Institute," where she paid 959 UzS for a likely to grow in value, that she could cash in one day: mandatory survey of her plot of land. They measured it and tested it for groundwater. Fortune, for once, smiled on However, at TGIITI she had been appraised of two dis- Nodira, for not only was there water but it was nine me- maying pieces of intelligence. The first was that she did ters underground (300 meters away the water rose to only not have the legal right to sell it the land for, it was pa- two meters below the surface, making laying foundations tiently repeated to her, land never belongs to individuals, difficult). Moreover, her land was flat. The hokimiyat often only to the common weal i.e. the state. The second item of issues land unsuitable for building, without water, or on information came as a revelation. The hokimiyat's gift of steep slopes, and leaves the new owners to cope as they land to her was hedged around with an unforeseen restric- may. tion: she enjoyed the right of usufruct only on condition that she built on it within four years. If she was not ac- (4) With proof that she had visited TGIITI, she was able tively resident on her plot in a GUKS-approved structure to return to ZhEK. It will be remembered that her first visit within that time, she forfeited her title and it automatically to ZhEK had confirmed only that she lived in Chilanzar. escheated to the state. In other words, she was obliged to Nodira had not actually got legal permission (vypiska) yet build whether she willed or no. As she reflected miserably to leave Chilanzar and register herself elsewhere. ZhEK on the trap she had fallen into, the TGIITI employee she now signed her application for a vypiska, formally dis- had been dealing with took her aside and told her not to charging her from Chilanzar and leaving her temporarily worry. Although it was technically illegal for her to sell district-less. Astonishingly, this procedure was free. her land, TGIITI could help her do it! Their salaries were so low that they regularly supplemented them by acting (5) Her next job was to attach herself to her new district. as black market real-estate agents. Nodira inquired in Her destination was the Sobir Rahimov Mahalla Commit- wonder what he thought her land might be worth. After tee, which handles applications for registrations involving reviewing her papers, he guessed about $10,000 net, after privately-owned houses in their district. To be cleared for the TGIITI commission for clinching the sale and doctor- registration there, she had to pay 950 UzS. ing the necessary papers.

(6) The PZI office (Proizvodstvenno-Zhilishchnaya Inspekt- Now a great and ingenious plan began forming in No- siya "Production-Housing Inspection") reviewed the dira's head, for precisely five days previously the state's documents she had collected so far and conceded that she Tashzhilsberbank (Tashkentskii Zhilishchno-Sberagatel'nii had run the course set out for her fairly, and had success- Bank, "Tashkent Housing-Savings Bank") had unveiled to fully fulfilled the labors expected of her. A single task lay an admiring Uzbekistan a new and wondrous banking in- ahead of her to get her file "notarized." Without asking novation, the mortgage. As a government accountant, she why or what any more, Nodira dutifully trooped to a no- had been one of the first to get wind of this bold idea and tary who signed, annotated and stamped the requisite appreciate how it worked. Tashzhilsberbank was in fact of- pages. The services of PZI and the notary cost together fering mortgages of a highly circumscribed nature. The 1,970 UzS. bank was in partnership with a construction firm that had just begun erecting a complex of apartment blocks not far All together, negotiating the labyrinth cost her 4,479 from Chorsu market, due to be completed in seven UzS (U.S.$86.13), which represents a little over two and a months' time. The down payment, approximately 30 per- half month's salary. Today the land is hers but she can- cent of the cost of the apartment, was made directly to the not build on it yet. In order to win that privilege, she must bank in exchange for which one would be penciled in as a secure approval for her building plans from GUKS the potential tenant. One was offered two possible payment head office of UKS (see #2, above). The cost of having a schedules covering the remaining 70 percent-plus interest blueprint drawn up and the necessary stamp affixed to it payments, extending over either three or ten years. Nodira depends on the size and unconventionality of the house, felt that with the cash realized from selling her land, she and probably the mood of the presiding official at the would have enough money to buy a new apartment. time. One lady of my acquaintance, Valentina, who fan- cied having an "American-style" two-story residence with Nodira and hurried to the bank (situated downtown a glassed-in porch, abandoned her idea when she found directly between the Palace of People's Friendship and the herself charged $700 for building permission. Probably Circus) to con the details. In a miserable, airless room lit the term "American-style" led the GUKS worker to con- by a single fluorescent bulb, droves of people waited at a clude that she was rich and ready to be gouged. Valen- wooden table to see the blueprints. We waited our turn, tina's tale went some way towards explaining to me why pouring with sweat. By the time we reached the front, all Uzbek mahalla houses are practically identical, built to a the first- and second-floor housing had already been traditional plan that admits no room for invention, inno- spoken for. But on the third floor, in a building made of vation or even ostentation. Besides such viable explana- brick, was the three-room apartment (74 sq. meters) that tions as the Uzbeks' conservatism, the proven conven- Nodira had dreamed of for almost twenty years. It cost

10 ASA-17 445,000 UzS (U.S.$8,558). A hasty decision was required. to me only last week. It was the second day of chilla: had When the doors opened the next morning, Nodira met her after work for a stroll in the park. was already brought a plastic bag full of cash (the only method of pay- flagging, but she was invincible. "Khodzhayeva Uighura ing the bank would accept) and emptied it out onto the #1, Apt. 13," she exclaimed happily. "Only seven more wooden table. It was counted and the papers were drawn months! A brick building! It will be cool in summer," she up at once. She had made a down payment of 141,000 UzS said, and with such wondrous passion, so unlike Nodira- (U.S.$2,712), the last of her savings, supplemented by her the-unlucky, Nodira-the-stoic, that felt was witnessing brother's. She agreed to pay the remainder of the cost of a conversion, as if Sonya from Crime and Punishment was the apartment, 304,000 UzS ($5,846) over ten years. Ac- being brought alive in front of me in her moment of cording to the ten-year schedule, interest payments add epiphany: "But she was so happy that her happiness al- 20 percent to her debt i.e. a real debt of 364,800 UzS most frightened her. Seven years, only seven years! At the (U.S.$7,015). The true cost to her of the apartment after a beginning of their happiness, at certain moments, they decade, in other words, will be 505,800 UzS (U.S.$9,727).4 were both ready to look on those seven years as if they were seven days..." Nodira, no fool was aware of the risks she was taking. For a start, the contract makes no provisions for the even- And if the land did not fetch a decent price, or no price tuality, depressingly predictable in Uzbekistan, that the at all? If one of a dozen complications intervened to ruin apartment will not be built on time, or perhaps never com- her plans and dash her hopes to the ground? "I will work. pleted at all. Furthermore, the price is not final. Incredi- My daughter speaks English: she'll find a good position. bly, to my mind, in the small print the bank reserves to it- She'll help me. We'll get through. And if the worst comes self the right to make any adjustments to the price of the to the worst," she concluded, with a twinkle in her eye, apartment it sees fit to compensate for inflation, rise in the "we will take up residence in your house in Samarkand." cost of building materials, new legislation about workers' salaries, etc. Nodira and her fellow tenants appeared to be smiled and averted my gaze. When thought of the completely at the bank's mercy. To add to this was the un- course she had run to reach this point and the emotional certainty whether her land really could be liquidated, and fortitude the constant struggle must have required, just how much it would yield. for the chance of risking all to achieve her dream, and when compared her determination with my dilettant- Yet Nodira's spirits have never been so good. She has ish whims and fancies, casually adopted and easily moved back in with her mother, leaving Natasha to rule abandoned, felt suffused with shame. have not yet the roost, but she is not downcast in the least. "Let her had the courage to confess to her my change of heart have that miserable, one-room hole-in-the-wall," she said about Samarkand. Q

IRAN

4. If she had chosen, or moves onto, the three-year schedule, interest payments come to only 10 percent of 304,000 UzS, i.e. a real debt of 334,400 UzS. In this case, the total true cost of the apartment after three years is 475,400 UzS (U.S.$9,142). Institute of Current World Affairs 11 The Institute of Current World Affairs 4 WEST WHEELOCK STREET HANOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE 03755

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Institute Fellows and their Activities

Adam Smith Albion A former research associate at Reporter for the Buenos Aires Herald from 1990 to ager for the world's leading producer of cardiac de- the Institute for EastWest Studies at Prague in the 1992. [THE AMERICAS] fibrillators, but most recently managed a $7 million Czech Republic, Adam is spending two years study- developing-country revolving-loan fund for the Pro- ing and writing about Turkey and Central Asia, and Sharon Griffin. A feature writer and contributing gram for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) their importance as actors the Middle East and the columnist on African affairs at the San Diego Union- in Seattle Pramila is spending two years in India former Soviet bloc A Harvard graduate (1988; His- Tribune, Sharon is spending two years in southern tracing her roots and studying social issues involv- tory), Adam has completed the first year of a two- Africa studying Zulu and the KwaZulu kingdom and ing religion, the status of women, population and year M. Litt degree in Russian/East European his- writing about the role of nongovernmental organi- AIDS [SOUTH ASIA] tory and languages at Oxford University. [EUROPE/ zations as fulfillment centers for national needs in RUSSIA] developing countries where governments are still John B. Robinson. A 1991 Harvard graduate with feeling their way toward effective administration a certificate of proficiency from the Institute of KiS- Christopher P. Ball. An economist, Chris Ball holds [sub-SAHARA] wahili in Zanzibar and a Master of Fine Arts in Crea- a B.A. from the University of Alabama in Huntsville tive Writing from Brown University, he and his wife and attended the 1992 International Summer John Harris. Awould-be lawyer with an undergrad- Delphine, a French oceanographer, are spending School at the London School of Economics. He uate degree in History from the University of Chi- two years in Madagascar with their two young sons, studied Hungarian for two years in Budapest while cago, John reverted to international studies after a Nicolas and Rowland. He will be writing about var- serving as Project Director for the Hungarian Atlan- year of internship in the product-liability department ied aspects of the island-nation's struggle to survive tic Council. As an Institute Fellow, he is studying and of a Chicago law firm and took two years of post- industrial and natural-resource exploitation and the writing about Hungarian minorities in the former So- graduate Russian at the University of Washington effects of a rapidly swelling population [sub- viet-bloc nations of East and Central Europe [EU- in Seattle. Based in Moscow during his fellowship, SAHARA] ROPE/RUSSIA] John is studying and writing about Russia's nas- cent political parties as they begin the difficult tran- Teresa C. Yates A former member of the American William F. Foote. Formerly a financial analyst with sition from identities based on the personalities of Civil Liberties Union's national task force on the Lehman Brothers' Emerging Markets Group, Willy their leaders to positions based on national and in- workplace, Teresa is spending two years in South Foote is examining the economic substructure of ternational issues. [EUROPE/RUSSIA] Africa observing and reporting on the efforts of the Mexico and the impact of free-market reforms on Mandela government to reform the national land- Mexico's people, society and politics. Willy holds a Pramila Jayapal. Born in India, Pramila left when tenure system. A Vassar graduate with ajuris doctor Bachelor's degree from Yale University (history), a she was four and went through primary and secon- from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Master's from the London School of Economics (De- dary education in Indonesia. She graduated from Teresa had an internship at the Centre for Applied velopment Economics; Latin America) and studied Georgetown University in 1986 and won an M.B.A. Legal Studies in Johannesburg in 1991 and 1992, Basque history in San Sebastian, Spain. He carried from the Kellogg School of Management in Evans- studying the feasibility of including social and eco- out intensive Spanish-language studies in Guate- ton, Illinois in 1990. She has worked as a corporate nomic rights in the new South African constitution. mala in 1990 and then worked as a copy editor and analyst for PaineWebber and an accounts man [sub-SAHARA]

Chosen on the basis of character, previous experience and promise, Institute Fellows are young professionals funded to spend a minimum of two years carrying out self-designed programs of study and writing outside the United States. The Fellows are required to report their findings and experiences from the field once a month. They can write on any subject, as formally or informally as they wish. The result is a unique form of reporting, analysis and periodic assessment of international events and issues.

Author: Albion, Adam Smith Title: ICWA Letters- Europe/Russia ISSN: 1083-4273 Imprint: ICWA, Hanover, NH Material Type: Serial Language: English Frequency: Monthly Other Regions: Mideast/North Africa; East Asia; South Asia; SubSaharan Af- rica; The Americas